Week 1

Dad stache on the way.


Week 1. Your child is the size of nothing. You discover from your wife's repeated admonitions that a child doesn't grow in a woman's stomach, it grows in the womb. It really seems like a miscalculation since the stomach has so much more room. Would eating a large Thanksgiving type meal crowd a child, or give them more room as the stomach expands? I have so much to learn.

Days until it takes me to make a joke about the murdering wives statistic. One:

M: Did you know that the majority of murders that men commit on their spouses actually occur during pregnancy.

S: Wait. What are you saying?

M: I’m just making conversation here. You don’t have to read in to everything.

I arrived home with a burning desire to fritter away my time playing video games, but I subjugated them to spray down the poison ivy jungle in our backyard, mow the lawn, water the azaleas, and take out the trash. Why did we ever move out of that single bedroom apartment? There was so much less space to have to fill with love.

I don't really remember much else about the first week except that telling my family was nice. Mainly because I think they had begun to doubt my virility after seven years of a child less marriage. And let's be honest, one thing you don't want to have happen when you walk into a room chalk full of people is for them to start whispering to each other about your lack of virility. "Look at that guy. He lacks virility. Which, in my experience is the sort of thing that people at parties say to each other. Or, "Look at that guy he couldn't even get a fertile philly pregnant." Which they would be doubly embarrassed about, because I would never even sleep with a horse and why would they say that? But I would probably direct them to some passages in Leviticus that warned against this very thing, and they wouldn't be so embarrassed. And maybe we could just idly chat about how much we enjoyed crushed ice.

Naturally I called (my family) them all up and they said all the right things, "We're so happy for you or extended screaming, or you're going to love it. I'm so proud of you et al." But I know that deep down they were all feeling a little bit ashamed of themselves for doubting my virility, and I didn't even mention it because I didn't want it to be awkward, I wanted this moment to be special for them and not just this huge misunderestimation of me. I think that time that I grew that mustache I pretty much proved I was ready to father children or be on a detective show in the 1980's. Or Tombstone. And that people probably stopped on street corners for that one day and said, "that guy looks like someone's dad or at the very least a weird uncle." And it makes me happy to just think of how proud I am of me.

But then I was sad because I won't be able to make jokes about bestiality and stuff because I'm going to have a kid. And what you say to kid is, peek a boo. Peek a boo. Peek a boo. Can you see me? Peek a boo. Until they start crying and then you pass them off to one of the parents. But now, I'm going to be one of those parents, and I'll just be holding a crying baby non-stop because other people aren't willing to hold our baby when it's crying, and I can hardly blame them. But then maybe I'll play a game of peek a boo or something and feel better.